French Culture Minister suspends aide for leaking “3 strikes” e-mail

A French broadcast executive was fired from his job after sending an e-mail to …

Last week, we covered the story of 31-year-old J�r�me Bourreau-Guggenheim, who works in the Internet division of French TV broadcaster TF1. After sending a private note to his MP opposing the proposed "three strikes" law currently being debated in France, Bourreau-Guggenheim found himself hauled into his boss' office. He was shown a copy of his e-mail, and he was fired for "strategic differences" with his employer.

The case led to outrage in France, since Bourreau-Guggenheim's private e-mail had been circulated from his MP's office to the Ministry of Culture, where someone then sent it to TF1. The Minister of Culture, Christine Albanel, is the government official tasked with pushing through the Cr�ation et Internet law, something she accomplished today. But Albanel had failed to secure the needed votes the first time around, leading to embarrassment for the Sarkozy government. After it emerged that her office had also leaked Bourreau-Guggenheim's critical e-mail to TF1, calls were made for Albanel's resignation.

Instead, though, she has offered up an aide as a sacrificial lamb. Deploring the leak and saying that she had nothing to do with it, Albanel instead suspended someone in her office for one month after he 'fessed up to passing along the message. Albanel called the situation a "regrettable error," though Bourreau-Guggenheim still appears to be out of work.